Multipath combining in chaotic direct-sequence spread spectrum communications through dual estimation

The aim of the present paper is to increase the reliability of a Kalman filter-based DS-SS receiver by considering in the state space models the multipath coefficients and associated delays. The objective being to operate at very low SNRs in shallow water (to achieve furtive transmissions) and with the need of a limited computational cost, the implementation relies on the Unscented Kalman Filter, which is known to be more robust than the popular Extended Kalman Filter. The proposed receiver schemes are discussed and compared using experimental data.